A British composer's ambitious quest to premier a requiem in the highly atmospheric Abney Park cemetery by lantern light.

Monday, 28 October 2013

Speedy Gonzales

This needs to be the speediest of speedy blogs. It's 2am and I've just driven all the way back from Bristol in pretty heavy rain which turned the car into a little box of condensation.

We had our final gig with Roy at the Colston Hall, a curious, rather dilapidated 1950s sort of venue with a really eerie basement. In the interval I took all the string players down there on a ghost tour. Great fun.

The gig itself went very well. We had an awful blip in Heaven Is Here, but otherwise I thought everything was excellent. Roy was on great form. The audience was very vocal - particularly towards the end. I got the impression that a number of people there had seen the show all three times.

I felt quote emotional at the end. When Roy plays When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease, I don't think there's a single person who doesn't think about death in some way. I guess Roy himself must sometimes wonder how many more times he himself will play it. It's a hugely mournful song.

Well, they say the hurricane has touched down in the south west. Fortunately Gillon and I were ahead of it as we drove along the M4, but the winds have picked up even since I got home. The windows are rattling. I have a full day in the studio tomorrow (bad planning)... I must go to bed.

About Me

Composer and television director. Recent works include: A Symphony for Yorkshire (winner of 3 RTS Awards and a Prix de Circom), Tyne and Wear Metro: The Musical (winner of a Gillard award), The Pepys Motet, The London Requiem, Songs from Hattersley, A1: The Road Musical (nominated for a Grierson Award), Watford Gap: The Musical, Coventry Market: The Musical (nominated for a SONY award and recipient of two Gillard awards) and Oranges and Lemons, which features every bell in every London church mentioned in the nursery rhyme.